Contents Cover About the Book Title Page Dedication Introduction No Home Cam’s Home Elaine’s Home Alexander’s Home Football’s Home Tracy and Alexander’s Home Mum’s Home The Tree Home The Garden Home Mum’s Home (Again) The Smashed Home Alexander’s Real Home Home Sweet Home About the Author About the Illustrator Also by Jacqueline Wilson Copyright
About the Book I’m Tracy Beaker, the Great Inventor of Extremely Outrageous Dares – and I dare YOU not to say this is the most brilliant story ever! I thought I was going to live happily ever after with Cam as my foster-mum. Well, ha ha! It hasn’t turned out like that. Cam’s so MEAN! She won’t buy me designer clothes so all the other kids at my new school laugh at me. No wonder I bunk off and go to this special secret place. There are these two boys I meet there, Alexander and Football. We play the Dare Game – and I always win. I’m the greatest. I AM! An all-time favourite Tracy Beaker story, now with an extra-special new introduction by Jacqueline!
To Jessie Atkinson Francesca Oates Zoe Lee and Sarah Emma Walker and all my friends at Redriff School and everyone else who ever wondered what happened to Tracy Beaker
The Dare Game The Story of Tracy Beaker has always been the most popular book. For years afterwards children kept asking me for another story about Tracy. Everyone wanted to find out what happened next. The first book finishes with Tracy absolutely determined that Cam is going to foster her but we’re not entirely sure that this will happen – or if it does, whether it will work out! I started to get loads of letters from children with their version of Tracy’s continuing adventures, some inventive, some amusing, some definitely not suitable for publication! For a long time I was happy to let things rest. I thought it was maybe more fun to let all my readers make up their own stories about Tracy. Then I was asked to write a play for a children’s theatre in Manchester and I decided to have a go. I know that most people think of football the moment you mention Manchester so I thought I’d definitely have to have a football fanatic in my play. The theatre was going to be in the Rotunda so I imagined all sorts of inter-active ball play between the cast and the audience. Then I invented a brainy weedy small boy called Alexander who couldn’t kick a ball to save his life. I needed a girl for my third main character. She had to be pretty fierce and feisty to hold her own against football. I started to write her . . . and she seemed strangely familiar. Of course, she was Tracy! I decided to have lots of new dares in my play. The dare scenes in The Story of Tracy Beaker where Justine says a rude word in front of the vicar and Tracy runs round the garden stark naked and both girls try to eat worms have always been the most popular part of the story. I wanted more silly dares, rude dares, funny dares – and then a very dangerous dare right at the climax of the play. I wrote The Dare Game with great enjoyment. I loved getting back into Tracy’s life. This time I made sure that she had a truly happily ever after ending. The play was fine. The theatre wasn’t. It burnt down and by the time it was built again there was a new management and they didn’t want my play after all. I decided to turn The Dare Game into a book, elaborating on the story, finding out much more about everyone. I’m so pleased that I’ve completed Tracy’s story. Or have I? There’s a brand new story about Tracy called Starring Tracy Beaker which is all about Tracy’s Christmas when she’s still
living in the Children’s Home. Maybe there’ll be more Tracy Beaker books in the future. Tracy as a teenager? Tracy falls in love? Tracy Beaker, young mum? Tracy Beaker, famous writer, actress, television star? Let’s wait and see!
No Home YOU KNOW THAT old film they always show on the telly at Christmas, The Wizard of Oz? I love it, especially the Wicked Witch of the West with her cackle and her green face and all her special flying monkeys. I’d give anything to have a wicked winged monkey as an evil little pet. It could whiz through the sky, flapping its wings and sniffing the air for that awful stale instant-coffee-and-talcum-powder teacher smell and then it would s-w-o-o-p straight onto Mrs Vomit Bagley and carry her away screaming. That’ll show her. I’ve always been absolutely Tip Top at writing stories, but since I’ve been at this stupid new school Mrs V.B. just puts ‘Disgracefully untidy work, Tracy’ and ‘Check your spellings!’ Last week we had to write a story about ‘Night-time’ and I thought it an unusually cool subject so I wrote eight and a half pages about this girl out late at night and it’s seriously spooky and then this crazy guy jumps out at her and almost murders her but she escapes by jumping in the river and then she swims right into this bloated corpse and then when she staggers onto the bank there’s this strange flickering light coming from the nearby graveyard and it’s an evil occult sect wanting to sacrifice an innocent young girl and she’s just what they’re looking for . . .
It’s a truly GREAT story, better than any that Cam could write. (I’ll tell you about Cam in a minute.) I’m sure it’s practically good enough to get published. I typed it out on Cam’s computer so it looked ever so neat and the spellcheck took care of all the spellings so I was all prepared for Mrs V.B. to bust a gut and write: ‘Very very very good indeed, Tracy. 10 out of 10 and Triple Gold Star and I’ll buy you a tube of Smarties at playtime.’ Do you know what she really wrote? ‘You’ve tried hard, Tracy, but this is a very rambling story. You also have a very warped imagination!’ I looked up ‘warp’ in the dictionary she’s always recommending and it means ‘to twist out of shape’. That’s spot on. I’d like to warp Mrs Vomit Bagley, twisting and twisting, until her eyes pop and her arms and legs are wrapped right round her great big bum. That’s another thing. Whenever I write the weeniest babiest little rude word Mrs V.B. goes bananas. I don’t know what she’d do if I used really bad words like **** and **** and ****** (censored!!). I looked up ‘ramble’ too. I liked what it said: ‘To stroll about freely, as for relaxation, with no particular direction’. So that’s exactly what I did today, instead of staying at boring old school. I bunked off and strolled round the town freely, as relaxed as anything. I had a little potter in Paperchase and bought this big fat purple notebook with my pocket money. I’m going to write all my mega-manic ultra-scary stories in it, as warped and as rambly as I can make them. And I’ll write my story too. I’ve written all about myself before in The Story of Tracy Beaker. So this can be The Story of Tracy Beaker Two or
Find Out What Happens Next to the Brave and Brilliant Tracy Beaker or Further Fabulous Adventures of the Tremendous Terrific Tracy Beaker or Read More About the Truly Terrible Tracy Beaker, Even More Wicked Than the Wicked Witch of the West. Yes. I was telling you about The Wizard of Oz. There’s only one bit that I truly dread. I can’t actually watch it. The first time I saw it I very nearly cried. (I don’t cry, though. I’m tough. As old boots. New boots. The biggest fiercest reinforced Doc Martens . . .) It’s the bit right at the end where Dorothy is getting fed up with being in Oz. Which is mad, if you ask me. Who’d want to go back to that boring black and white Kansas and be an ordinary kid where they take your dog away when you could dance round Oz in your ruby slippers? But Dorothy acts in an extremely dumb manner all the way through the film. You’d think she’d have sussed out for herself that all she had to do was click those ruby slippers and she’d get back home. That’s it. That’s the bit. Where she says, ‘There’s no place like home.’ It gets to me. Because there’s no place like home for me. No place at all. I haven’t got a home. Well. I didn’t have up until recently. Unless you count the Home. If a home has a capital letter at the front you can be pretty sure it isn’t like a real home. It’s just a dumping ground for kids with problems. The ugly kids, the bad kids, the daft kids. The ones no-one wants to foster. The kids way past their sell-by date so they’re all chucked on the rubbish heap. There were certainly some ultra-rubbishy kids at that Home. Especially a certain Justine Littlewood . . .
We were Deadly Enemies once, but then we made up. I even gave Justine my special Mickey Mouse pen. I rather regretted this actually and asked for it back the next day, pretending it had just been a loan, but Justine wasn’t having any. There are no flies on Justine. No wasps, bees or any kind of bug. It’s weird, but I kind of miss Justine now. It was even fun when we were Deadly Enemies and we played the Dare Game. I’ve always been great at thinking up the silliest daftest rudest dares. I always dared everything and won until Justine came to the Children’s Home. Then I still won. Most of the time. I did. But Justine could certainly invent some seriously wicked dares herself. I miss her. I miss Louise too. And I especially miss Peter. This is even weirder. I couldn’t stand weedy old Peter when he first came to the Home. But now it feels like he was my best ever friend. I wish I could see him. I especially wish I could see him right now. Because I’m all on my own and although it’s great to be bunking off school and I’ve found the most brilliant hiding place in the whole world it is a little bit lonely. I could do with a mate. When you’re in care you need to make all the friends you can get because you don’t have much family. Well. I’ve got family. I’ve got the loveliest prettiest best-ever mum in the whole world. She’s this dead famous Hollywood movie star and she’s in film after film, in so much demand that there isn’t a minute of the day when she can see me so that’s why I’m in care . . .
Who am I kidding??? Not you. Not even me. I used to carry on like that when I was little, and some kids took it all in and even acted like they were impressed. But now when I come out with all that movie guff they start to get this little curl of the lip and then the minute my back’s turned I hear a splutter of laughter. And that’s the kinder kids. The rest tell me straight to my face that I’m a nutter. They don’t even believe my mum’s an actress. I know for a fact she’s been in some films. She sent me this big glossy photo of her in this negligée – but now kids nudge and giggle and say, ‘What kind of film was your mum in, Tracy Beaker?’ So I duff them up. Sometimes literally. I’m very handy with my fists. Sometimes I just pretend it in my head. I should have pretended inside my head with Mrs Vomit Bagley. It isn’t wise to tell teachers exactly what you think of them. She gave us this new piece of writing work this morning. About ‘My Family’. It was supposed to be an exercise in autobiography. It’s really a way for the teachers to be dead nosy and find out all sorts of secrets about the kids. Anyway, after she’s told us all to start writing this ‘My Family’ stuff she squeezes her great hips in and out the desks till she gets to me. She leans over until her face is hovering a few inches from mine. I thought for one seriously scary second she was going to kiss me! ‘Of course, you write about your foster mother, Tracy,’ she whispers, her
Tic-Tac minty breath tickling my ear. She thought she was whispering discreetly, but every single kid in the room looked up and stared. So I stared straight back and edged as far away from Mrs V.B. as I could and said firmly, ‘I’m going to write about my real mother, Mrs Bagley.’ So I did. Page after page. My writing got a bit sprawly and I gave up on spelling and stopped bothering about full stops and capital letters because they’re such a waste of time, but I wrote this amazing account of me and my mum. Only I never finished it. Because Mrs V.B. does another Grand Tour of the class, bending over and reading your work over your shoulder in the most off-putting way possible, and she gets to me and leans over, and then she sniffs inwards and sighs. I thought she was just going to have the usual old nag about Neatness and Spelling and Punctuation – but this time she was miffed about the content, not the presentation. ‘You and your extraordinary imagination, Tracy,’ she said, in this falsely sweet patronizing tone. She even went ‘Tut tut’, shaking her head, still with this silly smirk on her face. ‘What do you mean?’ I said, sharpish. ‘Tracy! Don’t take that rude tone with me, dear.’ There was an edge to her voice and all. ‘I did my best to explain about Autobiography. It means you tell a true story about yourself and your own life.’ ‘It is true. All of it,’ I said indignantly. ‘Really, Tracy!’ she said, and she started reading bits out, not trying to keep her voice down now, revving up for public proclamation. ‘“My mum is starring in a Hollywood movie with George Clooney and Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and they all think she’s wonderful and want to be her boyfriend. Her new movie is going to star Leonardo DiCaprio as her younger brother and she’s got really matey with Leonardo at rehearsals and he’s seen the photo of me she carries around in her wallet and he says I look real cute and wants to write to me,”’ Mrs V.B. read out in this poisonous highpitched imitation of my voice.
The entire class collapsed. Some of the kids practically wet themselves laughing. Mrs V.B. had this smirk puckering her lips. ‘Do you really believe this, Tracy?’she asked. So I said, ‘I really believe that you’re a stupid hideous old bag who could only get a part in a movie about bloodsucking vampire bats.’ I thought for a moment she was going to prove her bat-star qualities by flying at my neck and biting me with her fangs. She certainly wanted to. But she just marched me out of the room instead and told me to stand outside the door because she was sick of my insolence. I said she made me sick and it was a happy chance that her name was Mrs V. Bagley. The other kids might wonder whether the V. stood for Vera or Violet or Vanessa, but I was certain her first name was Vomit, and dead appropriate too, given her last name, because she looked like the contents of a used vomit bag. She went back into the classroom when I was only halfway through so I said it to myself, slumping against the wall and staring at my shoes. I said I was Thrilled to Bits to miss out on her lesson because she was boring boring boring and couldn’t teach for toffee. She couldn’t teach for fudge, nougat, licorice or Turkish delight. I declared I was utterly Ecstatic to be Outside. Then Mr Hatherway walked past with a little squirt from Year Three with a nosebleed. ‘Talking to yourself, kiddo?’ he said. ‘No, I’m talking to my shoes,’ I said crossly. I expected him to have a go at me too but he just nodded and mopped the little spurting scarlet fountain. ‘I have a quiet chat to my shoes when things are getting me down,’ he said. ‘Very understanding friends, shoes. I find my old Hush Puppies especially comforting.’ The little squirt gave a whimper and Mr Hatherway gave him another mop. ‘Come on, pal, we’d better get you some first aid.’ He gave me a little nod and they walked on. Up until that moment I was
convinced that this new school was 100% horrible. Now it was maybe 1% OK, because I quite liked Mr Hatherway. Not that I had any chance of having him as my teacher, not unless I was shoved out of Year Six right to the bottom of the Juniors. And the school was still 99% the pits, so I decided to clear off out of it. It was easy-peasy. I waited till playtime when Mrs V.B. waved me away, her nostrils pinched like I smelled bad. So I returned the compliment and held my own nose but she pretended not to notice. It was music in the hall with Miss Smith after playtime so I was someone else’s responsibility then. Only I wasn’t going to stick around for music because Miss Smith keeps picking on me too, just because of that one time I experimented with alternative uses of a drumstick. So I moseyed down the corridor like I was going to the toilets only I went right on walking, round the corner, extra sharpish past Reception (though Mrs Ludovic was busy mopping the little kid with the nosebleed. It looked like World War Three in her office) and then quick out the door and off across the yard. The main gate was locked but that presented no problem at all for SuperTracy. I was up that wall and over in a flash. I did fall over the other side and both my knees got a bit chewed up but that didn’t bother me. They hurt quite a lot now, even though they’ve stopped bleeding. They both look pretty dirty. I’ve probably introduced all sorts of dangerous germs into my bloodstream and any minute now I’ll develop a high fever and start frothing at the mouth. I don’t feel very well actually. And I’m starving. I wish I hadn’t spent all my money on this notebook. I especially wish I hadn’t picked one the exact purple of a giant bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate. I shall start slavering all over it soon. I’d really like to call it a day and push off back to Cam’s but the clock’s just struck and it’s only one o’clock. Lunchtime. Only I haven’t any lunch. I can’t go back till teatime or Cam will get suspicious. I could show her my savaged knees and say I had a Dire Accident and got sent home, but Cam would think I’d been fighting again. I got in enough trouble the last time. It wasn’t fair. I didn’t start the fight. It was all that Roxanne Green’s fault. She made this sneery remark to her friends about my T-shirt. She was showing off in her new DKNY T-shirt, zigzagging her shoulders this way and that, so I
started imitating her and everyone laughed. So she goes, ‘What label is your T-shirt, Tracy?’ Before I could make anything up she says, ‘I know. It’s Oxfam!’ Everyone laughed again but this time it was awful so I got mad and called Roxanne various names and then she called me names and most of it was baby stuff but then she said the B word – and added that it was true in my case because I really didn’t have a dad. So I had to smack her one then, didn’t I? It was only fair. Only Roxanne and all her little girly hangers-on didn’t think it was fair and they told Mrs Vomit Bagley and she certainly didn’t think it was fair and she told Mr Donne the headteacher and, guess what, he didn’t think it was fair either. He rang Cam and asked her to come to the school for a Quiet Word. I was yanked along to the study too and I said lots of words not at all quietly, but Cam put her arm round me and hissed in my ear, ‘Cool it, Trace.’ I tried. I thought c-o-o-l and imagined a beautiful blue lake of water and me swimming slowly along – but I was so sizzling mad the water started to bubble all around me and I ended up boiling over and telling the head what I thought of him and his poxy teachers and putrid pupils. (Get my vocabulary, Mrs V.B.!) I very nearly ended up being excluded. Which is mad. I should have been even cheekier because I don’t want to go to this terrible old school. So I’ve excluded myself. I’m here. In my own secret place. Dead exclusive. My very own house.
Home! Well, it’s not exactly homely at the moment. It needs a good going over with a vacuum or two. Or three or four or five. And even though it’s kind of empty it needs a spot of tidying. There are empty beer cans and McDonald’s cartons chucked all over the place, and all kinds of freebie papers and advertising bumpf litter the hall so you’re wading ankle-deep when you come in the front door. Only I didn’t, seeing as it’s locked and bolted and boarded over. I came in the back, through the broken window, ever so carefully. I went in the back garden because I was mooching round and round the streets, dying for a wee. I came across this obviously empty house down at the end of a little cul-de-sac with big brambles all over the place giving lots of cover so I thought I’d nip over the wall quick and relieve myself. Which I did, though a black cat suddenly streaked past, which made me jump and lose concentration so I very nearly weed all over my trainers. When I was relieved and decent I tried to catch the cat, pretending this was a jungle and the cat was a tiger and I was all set to train it but the cat went ‘Purr-lease!’ and stalked off with its tail in the air. I explored the jungle by myself and spotted the broken window and decided to give the house a recce too. It’s a great house. It hasn’t quite got all mod cons any more. The water’s been turned off and the lights won’t switch on and the radiators are cold. But there’s still a sofa in the living room, quite a swish one, red velvet. Some
plonker’s put his muddy boots all over it, but I’ve been scratching at it with my fingernails and I think it’ll clean up a treat. I could bring a cushion. And a blanket. And some food. Yeah. Next time. But now it’s time for me to go . . . back to Cam.
Cam’s Home CAM IS FOSTERING me. It was all my idea. When I was back in the Children’s Home I was pretty desperate to be fostered. Ugly desperate. They’d even tried advertising me in the papers, this gungy little description of me outlining all my bad points together with a school photo where I was scowling – and so no-one came forward, which didn’t exactly surprise me. Though it was still awful. Especially when one of the kids at school brought the newspaper into school and showed everyone. That was a different school. It wasn’t much cop either. But it was marginally better than this one. This one is the worst ever. It’s Cam’s fault. She said I had to go there. Because it’s the nearest one. I knew I’d hate it from the very first day. It’s an old school, all red brick and brown paint and smelly cloakrooms and nearly all the teachers are old too. They sound like they’ve all been to this old-fashioned elocution school to get that horrid sarcastic tone to their voices. You know: ‘Oh, that’s really clever of you, Tracy Beaker’ when you spill your paint water (accidentally on purpose all over Roxanne’s designer Tshirt!), and ‘I’m amazed that you’re the one who scribbled silly words all over the blackboard, Tracy Beaker’ (wonderfully wicked words!), and ‘Can you possibly speak up a bit, Tracy Beaker, I think there’s a deaf old lady at the other end of the street who didn’t quite catch that’ (I had to raise my voice because how else can I get the other kids in my group to listen to me?). I hate it when we have to split up for group work. They all fit into these neat little groups: Roxanne and her gang, Almost-Alan-Shearer and the football crazies, Basher Dixon and his henchmen, Wimpy Lizzie and Dopey Dawn and that lot, Brainbox Hannah and Swotty Andrew – they’re all divided up. And then there’s me.
Mrs V.B. puts me in different groups each time. Sometimes I’m in a group all by myself. I don’t care. I prefer it. I hate them all. Cam says I should try to make friends. I don’t want to be friends with that seriously sad bunch of losers. I keep moaning to Cam that it’s a rubbish school and telling her to send me somewhere else. She’s useless. Well, she did try going down to the Guildhall and seeing if they could swop me somewhere else but they said the other schools in the area are oversubscribed. She just accepted it. Didn’t make any kind of fuss. If you want anything in this world you’ve got to fight for it. I should know. ‘You’re on their waiting list,’ Cam said, as if she thought I’d be pleased. What use is that? I’ve been waiting half my life to get a life. I thought my big chance had come when Cam came to the Children’s Home to research this boring old article about kids in care. (She only got £100 for it and I was barely mentioned!) I thought she might do as a foster mum as she’s a writer and so am I. She needed quite a lot of persuading. But I can be pretty determined when I want. And I did want Cam. Badly. So when she said, ‘Right then, Tracy, let’s give it a go. You and me. OK?’ it was more than OK. I was over the moon. Soaring straight up into the solar system. I couldn’t wait to get out of the Children’s Home. I got dead impatient with Elaine the Pain my social worker because she seemed to be trying to slow things down instead of speed them up.
‘No point in rushing things, Tracy,’she said. I felt there was every point. I didn’t want Cam to change her mind. She was having to go to all these interviews and meetings and courses and she’s not really that sort of person. She doesn’t like to be bossed around and told what to do. Like me. I was scared she might start to think it was all too much hassle. But eventually we had a weekend together and that was great. Cam wanted it to be a very laid-back weekend – a walk in the park, a video or two, and a takeaway pizza. I said I did all that sort of stuff already at the Children’s Home and couldn’t we do something special to celebrate our first weekend together? I told you I can be pretty persuasive. Cam took me to Chessington World of Adventures and it was truly great and she even bought me this huge python with beady green eyes and a black forked tongue. She dithered long and hard about it, saying she didn’t want it to look like she was buying my affection, but I made the python wind round and round her beguilingly. He ‘told’ her he was desperate to be bought because the shopkeeper was really mean to him just because he’d got a teeny bit peckish and gobbled up a furry bunny and several toy mice as a little snack.
Cam bought him though she said she was mad and that she’d be eating bread and cheese for the rest of the week as the entry tickets and burger and chips for lunch had already cost a fortune. I should have realized she can be a boring old meanie when it comes to money but I wanted Cam to foster me so much that I didn’t focus on her bad points. Maybe she didn’t focus on my bad points??? Anyway, it was like we were both wearing our rose-coloured glasses and we smiled in our pink-as-petals perfect world and on Sunday evening when I had to go back to the Home Cam hugged me almost as tight as I hugged her and promised that she really wanted to go through with things and foster me. So she did. And that’s really where my story should have ended. Happily Ever After. Only I’m not always happy. And actually I’m not even sure Cam is either. It was fine at first. Elaine says we went through this Honeymoon Period. Is it any wonder I call her a pain? She comes out with such yucky expressions. But I suppose Cam and I were a little bit like newly weds. We went everywhere together, sometimes even hand-in-hand, and whenever I wanted anything I could generally persuade her and I was careful not to get too stroppy because I didn’t want her to go off me and send me back. But after a bit . . . I don’t know. Somehow it all changed. Cam wouldn’t always take me out for treats and buy me stuff. Stuff I seriously need, like designer clothes, else I get picked on by poisonous girls like Roxanne. Cam says she can’t afford it – which can’t be true. I know for a fact she gets paid a fortune by the authorities for looking after me. It’s a bit of a rip-off, if you ask me. And this is all on top of what she earns from being a writer. Cam says she doesn’t earn much as a writer. Peanuts, she says. Well, that’s her fault. She doesn’t write the right stuff. She’s wasting her time
writing these yawny articles for big boring papers that haven’t got proper pictures. And her books are even worse. They’re dreary paperbacks about poor women with problems. I mean, who wants to read that sort of rubbish? I wish she’d write more romantic stuff. I keep telling Cam she wants to get cracking on those great glossy books everyone reads on their holidays. Where all the women are beautiful with heaps of different designer outfits and all the men have dynamic jobs and are very powerful and they all get together in different combinations so there are lots and lots of rude bits. Cam just laughs at me and says she can’t stick those sort of books. She says she doesn’t mind not being a successful writer. I mind. I want a foster mum I can show off about. I can’t show off about Cam because no-one’s ever heard of her. And she’s not pretty or sexy or glamorous. She doesn’t wear any make-up and her hair’s too short to style so it just sticks straight up and her clothes are awful – T-shirts and jeans all the time and they’re certainly not designer. Her home is just as shabby too. I hoped I’d get to live in a big house with swish furniture and lots of fancy ornaments, but Cam lives in this poky little flat. She hasn’t even got any proper carpet, she’s just polished up the bare floorboards and has a few rugs scattered about. Quite good fun if I fancy a slide but they look hopeless. You should see her sofa too! It’s leather but it’s
all cracked so she has to hide it with this old patchwork quilt and some lumpy tapestry cushions she cross-stitched herself. She tried to show me how to do cross-stitch. No wonder that’s what it’s called. The more I stitched the crosser I got, and I soon gave up in disgust. I’ve got my own bedroom but it’s not a patch on my room at the Children’s Home. It’s not much bigger than a cupboard. Cam’s so mean too. She said I could choose to have my bedroom exactly the way I wanted. Well, I had some great ideas. I wanted a king-size bed with a white satin duvet and my own dressing table with lights all round the mirror like a film star and white carpet as soft and thick as cat fur and my own computer to write my stories on and my own sound system and a giant white television and video and a trapeze hanging from the ceiling so I could practise circus tricks and my own ensuite bathroom so I could splash all day in my own private bubble bath. Cam acted like I was joking. When she realized I wasn’t joining in the general laughter she said, ‘Come on, Trace, how could all that stuff ever fit in the box room?’ Yeah, quite. Why should I be stuck in the box room? Am I a box? Why can’t I have Cam’s room? I mean, she’s got hardly any stuff, just a lot of books and a little bed. She could easily fit in the box room. I did my best to persuade her. I wheedled and whined for all I was worth – but she didn’t budge. So I ended up in this little rubbish room and I’m supposed to think it a huge big deal because I was allowed to choose the colour paint and pick a new duvet cover and curtains. I chose black to match my mood. I didn’t think Cam would take me seriously but she gave in on that one. Black walls. Black ceiling. She suggested luminous silver stars which are kind of a good idea. I’m not too keen on the dark. I’m not scared. I’m not scared of anything. But I like to look up from my bed and see those stars
glowing up above. Cam hunted around and found some black sheets with silver stars and made curtains to match. She’s pretty useless at sewing and the hems go up and down a bit but I suppose she was trying her best. She calls my black room the ‘bat cave’. She’s bought me several little black velvet toy bats to hang from the ceiling. They’re quite cute really. And my python lies on the floor by the door and acts like a draught excluder and attacks anyone who dares try to barge in on us. Like Jane and Liz. I can’t stand Jane and Liz. They are Cam’s friends. They keep coming over and sticking their noses in. I thought they were OK at first. Jane is big (you should see the size of her bum!) and Liz is little and bouncy. Jane took me swimming once (she’s not a pretty sight in her swimming costume) and it was quite good fun actually. There was a chute into the water and a wave machine and Jane let me ride on her shoulders and didn’t get huffy when I pretended she was a whale. She even spouted water for me. But then she came over one day when Cam and I were having this little dispute – well, kind of mega-argument when I was letting rip yelling all sorts of stuff – and later when I was sulking in my bat cave I heard Jane telling Cam that she was daft to put up with all my nonsense and she knew I
had had a hard time but that didn’t give me licence to be such a Royal Pain in the Bottom. (A pain wouldn’t have a chance attacking her bottom.) I still thought Liz was OK. I was worried at first because she’s a teacher but she’s not a bit like Mrs V.B. She knows all these really rude jokes and she can be a great laugh. She’s got her own rollerblades and she let me borrow them which was great. I was great too. I simply whizzed around and didn’t fall over once and looked seriously cool – but then when I started getting on to Cam that it was time she bought me my own rollerblades seeing I was so super-skilled Liz got a bit edgy and told me that Cam wasn’t made of money. I wish! Then Liz started off this boring old lecture about Caring not being the same as Spending Money and it was almost as if she’d morphed into Mrs Vomit Bagley before my very eyes! I still thought Liz was kind of cool though but then one evening she came round late when I was in bed in the Bat Cave and I think maybe Cam was crying in the living room because we’d had some boring old set-to about something . . . I forget what. Well, I don’t forget, I happened to have borrowed a tenner out of her purse – I didn’t steal it – and anyway if she’s my foster mum now she should fork out for me, and she’s so mean she doesn’t give me enough pocket money, and it was only a measly ten-pound note – I could have nicked a twenty – and why did she leave her purse lying around if she gets so fussed about cash going missing? – she’s not part of the real world, old Cam, she wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the Children’s Home.
Anyway, Liz came round and I slithered round my door like my python so I could hear what they were saying. I figured it would be about me. And it was. Liz kept asking Cam what this latest crisis was all about and Cam kept quiet for a bit but then out it all came: naughty little Tracy is a thief. Cam started on about some other stuff too. OK, I borrowed one of her pens – well, several – and some silly old locket that her mum had given her. I didn’t mean to buckle it. I was only trying to prise it open to see what she had inside. I felt Cam was being a mean old tell-tale – and Liz was encouraging her for all she was worth, saying it was good for her to let it all out and have a moan and howl. Liz came out with all this s-t-u-p-i-d stuff that I was just nicking for affection and attention. All these teachers and social workers have got their heads full of this rubbish. I nicked the stuff because I was short of cash and needed a pen and . . . well, I just wanted the locket. I thought I could maybe put a picture of my mum in it. My real mum. I’ve got a photo, and she’s looking dead glamorous, a true movie star, smiling and smiling. Guess what she’s smiling at! This little baby in her arms tugging at her gorgeous long blonde hair. It’s me! I wish Cam had long hair. I wish she looked glamorous. I wish she was something special like a film star. I wish she smiled more. She just slumps round all draggy and depressed. Over me. She had a good cry to Liz and said she was useless and that it wasn’t
working out the way she’d hoped. I knew it. I knew she wouldn’t want me. Well. See if I care. Liz said that this was just a stage, and that I was acting out and testing my limits. ‘She’s testing my limits, I tell you,’said Cam. ‘You mustn’t let her get to you so,’said Liz. ‘Lighten up a bit, Cam. Don’t let your life revolve around Tracy all the time. You don’t ever go out any more. You’ve even given up your classes.’ ‘Yes, well, I can’t leave Tracy in the evening. I did bring up the idea of a babysitter but she was insulted.’ ‘What about your morning swimming then? You were getting really fit. Why don’t you take Tracy too, before school? Jane says she loved it at the baths.’ ‘There just isn’t time. We have enough hassle getting her ready for school at nine. And, oh God, that’s another thing. She isn’t settling and the head keeps ringing me up and I don’t know what to do about it.’ ‘How about telling Tracy how you feel?’ ‘Tracy’s not bothered about the way I feel. It’s the way she feels that matters. And she’s not feeling too great either at the moment. So she takes it out on me.’ ‘Try standing up to her for once. Put her in her place,’ says horrible old Liz. ‘That’s just it. That’s why she’s so difficult. She doesn’t know her place because she hasn’t ever had one. A place of her own,’says Cam. It made me feel good that she could suss that out and bad because I don’t want her to pity me. I don’t want her to foster me because she feels sorry for me. I want her to foster me because she’s dead lonely and it gives her life a purpose and she’s crazy about me. She says she cares about me but she doesn’t love me like a real mum. She doesn’t want to buy me treats every single day and give me loads of money and keep me home from school because it’s so horrible. I’m not ever going back. I can bunk off every day, easy-peasy. I timed it to perfection, arriving back at Cam’s dead on time. She was sitting on her
squashy old sofa writing her sad old story in her notebook. I made her jump when I came barging in but she smiled. I suddenly felt weird, like I’d been missing her or something, so I ran over to her and bounced down beside her. ‘Hey, Trace, watch the sofa!’ she said, struggling back into the upright position. ‘You’ll break it. You’ll break me!’ ‘Half the springs are broken already.’ ‘Look, I never pretended this was House Beautiful.’ ‘Hovel Hideous, more like,’ I said, getting up and roaming round the shabby furniture, giving it a kick. ‘Don’t do that, Tracy,’ Cam said sharply. Aha! It was standing-up-to-Tracy time! Well, I can stand up to her. And walk all over her too. Cam saw me squaring up and wilted. ‘Don’t start, Tracy. I’ve had a hard day. You know that article I wrote?’ ‘Rejected?’ ‘So I’m dejected. And I’m stuck halfway through Chapter Four of my novel and—’ ‘And you want to write something that will sell. Something actionpacked!’ I pretended to karate chop her. I didn’t touch her but I made her blink. ‘Lively!’ I jumped up and down in front of her. ‘And sexy!’ I waggled
my hips and batted my eyelashes. ‘Yeah yeah yeah,’said Cam. ‘I’m going to make my fortune as a writer, you wait and see,’ I said. I looked at the little bits Cam had scribbled in her notebook. ‘I can write heaps more than that. I wrote pages and pages and pages today, practically a whole book.’ ‘Was that for English?’ ‘No, it was . . .’ Oh-oh. Caution required. ‘It was just something private I’m writing. At playtime and in the lunch hour.’ ‘Can I have a look?’ ‘No!’ I don’t want her to see this purple notebook. I keep it hidden in my school bag. Otherwise she might wonder when I bought it. And where I got the cash. She might start going through her purse again and we don’t want another one of those rows. ‘OK, OK, it’s private, right. But couldn’t I have one little peep?’ ‘You’re getting as bad as old Vomit Bagley. She made us do this Exercise in Autobiography, the nosy old bag, all this stuff about “My Family”.’ Cam stiffened and forgot about my private writing – as I intended! ‘She says to me that I should write about my foster mum—’ ‘And did you?’
‘No, I wrote about my mum. And how she’s an actress in Hollywood and so busy she can’t come and see me. You know.’ ‘Yeah. I know.’ ‘Only old Vomit Bag didn’t believe me. She made fun of me.’ ‘That’s horrible!’ ‘You believe me, don’t you, Cam? About my mum?’ I watched her very carefully. ‘Well . . . I know just how much your mum means to you, Tracy.’ ‘Ha! You think it’s all rubbish, don’t you? A story I made up.’ ‘No! Not if . . . if you think it’s true.’ ‘Well, it’s not true.’ I suddenly shouted it. ‘None of it’s true. I made it all up. It’s dead babyish and pathetic. She’s not an actress at all. She just can’t be bothered to get in touch.’ ‘You don’t know that, Tracy.’ Cam tried to put her arm round me but I jerked free. ‘I do know. I haven’t seen her for years. I used to wait and wait and wait for her in the Children’s Home. I must have been mad. She isn’t ever going to come and get me. If someone said, “Do you remember anyone called Tracy Beaker?” she’d probably look vague and go, “Hang on – Tracy? Sounds familiar. Who is she, exactly?” Fat lot she cares. Well, I don’t care either. I don’t want her for my mum.’ I didn’t know I was going to say all that. Cam was staring at me. I stared back at her. My throat felt dry and my eyes prickled. I very nearly started crying, only of course I don’t ever cry. Cam was looking at me. My eyes blurred so that she went all fuzzy. I took a step forward, holding out my hands like I was feeling my way through fog. Then the phone rang. We both jumped. I blinked. Cam said to leave it. But I can’t stand leaving a phone ringing, so I answered it. It was Elaine the Pain. She didn’t want to talk to me. She wanted to speak to Cam. Typical. She’s my social worker. And it was about me. But she had to
tell Cam first. And then she told me. You’ll never ever ever guess. It’s my mum. She’s been in touch. She wants to see me!
Elaine’s Home I HAVEN’T BEEN to Elaine’s home home. Just her office. She’s done her best to turn it into a home. She’s got all these photos of kids on the wall. I’m there somewhere. She’s used the photo where I’m crossing my eyes and sticking out my tongue. She’s got a similarly cross-eyed giant bear prowling the top of her filing cabinet, terrorizing a little droopy-eared mauve rabbit. There’s an old Valentine propped on her desk which says inside (I had a quick nose), ‘To my Little Bunny from Big Bear’. Y-U-C-K! She has a framed photo of this ultra-weedy guy with thick glasses who must be Big Bear. There are several framed mottoes too, like: ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps’ and a poem about an old woman wearing purple and some long drivelly meditation about Listening to Your Inner Child. Never mind Elaine’s Inner Child. I am her Outer Child and it’s megadifficult to make contact with her, even when I bawl my head off. ‘Now calm down, Tracy,’she said. ‘I don’t want to calm down!’ I yelled. ‘I want to see my mum. I’ve waited long enough. Like, years! So I want to see my mum NOW!’ ‘You don’t get anywhere by yelling, Tracy,’ said Elaine. ‘You should know how things work by now.’ ‘I know how they don’t work! Why can’t I see my mum right this minute?’ ‘Because we need to prepare for this meeting.’ ‘Prepare! I’ve been waiting half my life! I couldn’t get more prepared if I tried.’ ‘That’s just it, Tracy. We don’t want you to get too worked up about things.’ ‘So you think telling me my mum wants to see me and then telling me I can’t see her is going to calm me down????’ ‘I didn’t say you can’t see her. Of course you can see her.’
‘When?’ ‘When we can all arrange an appropriate date.’ ‘Who’s this “we”?’ ‘Well. I shall need to be there. And Cam.’ ‘Why? Why can’t it just be my mum and me?’ It was just my mum and me once. I can remember it. I can. We had a great time, my mum and me. She’s incredibly beautiful, my mum. Lovely long curly fair hair all round her shoulders, dead smart, with high heels. She looks amazing. Well, she did. Last time I saw her. Quite a while ago. A long long time ago. I do remember that last time. I was in the Home then but Mum visited me at first – she even gave me this doll, and she took me to McDonald’s. It was a great day out. And she kissed me goodbye. I remember the way her blonde curls tickled my cheek and the sweet powdery way she smelled. I clung on tight round her neck, so tight that when she straightened up I was still clinging to her like a monkey, and that annoyed her because I got my muddy shoes over her smart black skirt and I was scared she was cross and wouldn’t come back. I said, ‘You will come back, Mum, won’t you? Next Saturday? You’ll take me to McDonald’s again? Promise?’ She promised. But she didn’t come back. I waited that Saturday. The Saturday after that. Saturday after Saturday after Saturday. She didn’t come back. She didn’t come because she got this amazing offer from Hollywood and she starred in this incredible movie and— And who am I kidding? Why am I spouting the same old babyish rubbish? She probably wasn’t ever a proper actress. She certainly hasn’t been in any
Hollywood movies that I know of. She didn’t come back because she couldn’t be bothered. She left me in care. For years. I was taken into care because she didn’t look after me properly. She kept going off with this boyfriend and leaving me. And then she got this new scary guy who whacked me one whenever I yelled. I’ve had a little peep in my files. Though I can remember some of it too. Stuff that still gives me nightmares. So why do I want to see my mum so much? I don’t want to see her. I do. Even after the way she’s treated me? She’s still my mum. I’ve got Cam now. She’s not my mum, she’s just a foster parent. And she’s sick of me anyway. Is she? I don’t know. I suppose I need to talk it over with Elaine. So the next time I see her I’m all set. She’s all smiles. ‘Ah, Tracy, you’ll be pleased to know it’s all fixed now, this special meeting with your mum.’ She beams at me, as happy as a bunny in a field of lettuce. ‘I don’t want to see her now,’ I said. Elaine’s bunny nose went twitch-twitch-twitch. ‘What?’ ‘You heard. I don’t have to see her, not if I don’t want. And I don’t want.’ ‘Tracy, you are going to be the death of me,’ she said, blowing upwards over her big bunny teeth. Then her eyes crossed a little with concentration and
I knew she was counting up to ten, s-l-o-w-l-y. It’s her little way of dealing with me. When she got to ten she gave me this big false smile. ‘I understand, Tracy,’she said. ‘No you don’t.’ ‘It’s only natural you feel anxious about this meeting. It obviously means a great deal to you. And you don’t want to risk getting let down. But I’ve had several phone conversations with your mother and she seems as keen as you to meet. I’m sure she’ll turn up this time, Tracy.’ ‘I said, I don’t want to see her,’ I declared, but I knew I wasn’t kidding her. She tried to kid me though. ‘OK, Tracy, you don’t want to see your mum – so I’ll phone up right this minute and cancel everything,’ she said, and she started dialling. ‘Hey, hang about. No need to be quite so hasty,’ I said. Elaine giggled. ‘Got you!’ ‘I don’t think that’s very professional of you, teasing like that,’ I said, dead haughty. ‘You would try the patience of a professional saint, Tracy,’ said Elaine, and she ruffled my hair. ‘Now, how are things with you and Cam?’ ‘OK. I suppose.’ ‘She’s one hundred and one per cent supporting you over seeing your mum, you know, but it must be a little bit hard for her.’ ‘Well. That’s what being a foster mum is all about, isn’t it? Taking a back seat when necessary. Encouraging all contact with natural families. I’ve read the leaflets.’ ‘You’re all heart, Tracy,’said Elaine, sighing. ‘Not me, Elaine. Totally heartless,’ I said. So . . . I’m seeing my mum tomorrow! Which is maybe why I’m wide awake now at three o’clock in the morning. Scribbling away. And wondering what she’ll be like. And if she’ll really come. Oh-oh. Stirrings from next door. Cam’s spotted my light. Later. I thought she might be a bit narked. But she made us both a cup of tea and then we sat at either end of my bed, sipping away. I don’t usually like her ropy old herbal tea but she’d bought a special strawberry packet that doesn’t taste too horrible.
I thought she might want a heart-to-heart (even though I haven’t got one) but thank goodness she just started talking about this story she used to make up when she was a little kid and couldn’t sleep. I said, ‘Yeah, I do that, really scary bloodthirsty ghost stories,’ and she said, ‘No, little ghoul, this was supposed to be a comfort story,’ and she started on about pretending her duvet was a big white bird and she’d be flying on its back in the starlight and then it would take her to a lake and they’d float on it in the dark and then they’d go to its great mossy nest . . . ‘All slime and bird’s muck, right?’ ‘Wrong! All soft and fresh and downy, and the big white bird would spread its wings and I’d huddle underneath in the quiet and the warmth, hearing its heart beat under its snowy feathers.’ ‘Oh, I get it. This is the Get-you-back-to-sleep story,’ I said – but after she’d taken my cup and tucked me up and ruffled my curls (why do they all do that, like I’m some unruly little puppy?) and I was left in the dark I tried out the story myself. Only I was in my black bat cave, and I’m Tracy Beaker, not a silly old softie like Cam, so I made up this big black vampire bat and we swooped through the night together. We’d zap straight through certain windows and nip Mrs V.B. in the neck or nibble Roxanne right on the end of her nose and flap out again the second they started screaming. I think it took me to its real big black bat cave to hang by our toes with all our brother bats only I might have been asleep by then.
I’m awake now. Early. Waiting. I wonder if she’ll turn up? She did, she did, she did!!! Cam came with me to Elaine’s. But she waited outside and, surprise surprise, Elaine did too. So the mega-meet of the century took place in private. Just me and my mum. I was sitting in Elaine’s room, swivelling round and round in her little chair on wheels, when this woman comes straight in and stands there blinking at me. A small woman with very bright blonde hair and a lot of lipstick, wearing a very short skirt and very high heels. A beautiful woman with long fair hair and a lovely face in the most stylish sexy clothes. My mum. I knew her straight away. She didn’t know me. She went on blinking, like she’d just poked her mascara wand in her eye. ‘Tracy?’she said, looking round, as if the room was full of kids. ‘Hi,’ I said, in this silly little squeak. ‘You’re not my Tracy!’ said mum, shaking her head at me. ‘You’re too
big!’ I’m quite small and skinny for my age so I didn’t get what she was on about. ‘My Tracy’s just a little kid. A funny little kid with weird sticky-out plaits. The tantrums when it was hair-brushing time!’ She peered at me. ‘Was that really you?’ I held out a strand of hair and mimed plaiting it. ‘You had a filthy temper when you were a toddler,’ said Mum. ‘It is you, isn’t it? My Tracy!’ ‘Mum.’ ‘Well!’ There was a bit of a pause. Mum half held her arms out but then changed her mind, acting like she was just stretching. ‘Well,’ she said again. ‘How have you been then, darling? Did you miss me, eh?’ I did a rapid rewind through the years, remembering. I wanted to tell her what it was like. But I couldn’t seem to get my act together at all. I’m the lippiest gabbiest kid ever, ask anyone – but now all I could do was nod. Mum looked a bit disappointed by my response. ‘I’ve been driven crazy thinking about you!’ she said. ‘I kept making all these plans to get you back, but things kept going haywire. I was tied up with this and that . . .’ ‘Films?’ I whispered. ‘Mmm.’ ‘In Hollywood?’ ‘Not exactly.’ ‘But you are an actress, aren’t you, Mum?’ ‘Yes, sweetie. And I do a lot of modelling too. All sorts. Anyway. I always planned for you and me to get back together, like I said. But I wanted it to be perfect, see.’ I didn’t see. But I didn’t say. ‘I kept getting mixed up with the wrong kind of guy,’ Mum confided, perching on the edge of Elaine’s desk and rootling in her handbag. ‘I remember,’ I said cautiously. ‘There was one . . . I hated him.’ ‘Yeah, well, like I said, there have been a few. And my latest! A total pig!’ She shook her head and lit a cigarette, taking a long drag.
Elaine has a strict non-smoking policy in her room. In the whole building. If any of the staff or the clients want a quick fag they have to huddle outside the back entrance. I was sure the smoke alarm was going to go off any second. ‘Mum,’ I said, nodding at the crossed-out cigarette sign prominently displayed on the wall. Mum tutted contemptuously and took another puff. ‘I gave my heart to that man,’ she said, tapping herself on her chest and scattering ash down her jumper. ‘Do you know what he did with it?’ She leant towards me. ‘Stamped on it!’ Her high heel jerked as if she was doing the stamping. ‘Men!’ I said sympathetically, in the tone Cam and Liz and Jane frequently used. Mum looked at me and then burst into peals of laughter. I felt daft and swivelled round and round on Elaine’s chair. ‘Hey, don’t do that, you’re making me feel giddy. Come here! Haven’t you got a kiss for your mum after all this time?’ ‘Sure,’ I said shyly, though I’m not really the kissy-kissy type. Mum bent down, her head on one side. I pecked at her powdery cheek – and then the sweet smell of her made me suddenly clutch her tight.
‘Hey, hey, careful, sweetie! Watch my cigarette! No need to be so dramatic. Looks like you’re the little actress!’ She dabbed at my face. ‘Real tears!’ ‘No they’re not,’ I said, sniffling. ‘I don’t ever cry. It’s hayfever.’ ‘Where’s the hay?’ said Mum, peering round Elaine’s office. Her ash was building up again. She tapped it into Elaine’s special Bunnikins mug. I hoped Elaine would look inside before making herself a cup of coffee. ‘I get allergic to all sorts,’ I said, wiping my nose. ‘Hey, hey, haven’t you got a tissue?’ said Mum, tutting at me. ‘I hope you’re not allergic to me.’ ‘Maybe it’s your perfume – though it smells lovely.’ ‘Ah,’ said Mum, dabbing at me with her own tissue. ‘That’s my Poison. That pig forked out for a huge bottle just before he cleared off. I’d like to poison him all right! The nerve! Left me for some silly little kid barely older than you.’ ‘Typical!’ I said. Mum chuckled again. ‘Where do you get all your quaint ways, eh?’ ‘Cam says “typical” a lot,’ I said, without really thinking. ‘Who’s Cam?’said Mum. I felt a little thunk in my stomach. ‘My . . . my foster mum.’ Mum straightened up and threw the damp tissue into Elaine’s wastebin. Well, she missed, but she didn’t seem to care. ‘Ah!’she said, pinching the end of her cigarette so that she squeezed the light out of it. She threw it in the direction of the wastebin, missing again. ‘She’s the one who’s taken a fancy to you. Your social worker –’ Mum lowered her voice slightly, gesturing round the office – ‘what’s her name?’ ‘Elaine. The pain.’ Mum stopped looking stroppy and giggled again. ‘She is, isn’t she! Still, you watch your lip, Tracy.’ I stuck my lip right out and crossed my eyes, like I was watching it. Mum sighed and shook her head at me. ‘Cheeky! Anyway, she gets in touch with me – eventually – and tells me this woman has bobbed up out of the blue and has taken you out of the Children’s Home. Right?’ I nodded. Mum lit up another fag, getting dead irritated now. ‘Why did you go along with it? You don’t want to live with this woman, do you?’ I didn’t know what to do. I just kind of shrugged my shoulders. ‘She sounds a bit suspect, if you ask me. Single woman, no spare cash – obviously scruffy standards, judging by your little outfit. Where did she get your clothes, a jumble sale?’
‘You got it.’ ‘No! You’d think they’d be a bit more picky with their foster parents. Couldn’t they have found anyone better? Anyway, you don’t need a foster mum. It’s not like you’re an orphan. You’ve got a mum. Me.’ I blinked at her. She sighed again, dragging on her cigarette. ‘I wanted you safe and sound in the Children’s Home where everyone could keep an eye on you.’ ‘I don’t want to go back!’ I burst out. Mum narrowed her eyes at me. ‘What did they do to you there, then?’ ‘It was awful!’ I launched in. ‘They kept locking me in the quiet room if I did the slightest little thing and everyone kept picking on me. I got blamed for everything. And there was this big girl, Justine, she kept beating me up. Though I beat her up too. And we played this Dare Game and I was heaps more daring than she was. I ran all round the garden of the Children’s Home without any clothes on and Justine only ate one worm but I ate two really wriggly ones—’ ‘Hey hey, you’re a right little nutter, you are! They’re not a good influence, children’s homes. Still, don’t worry, you’re not going back.’ ‘So . . . am I going to stay with Cam?’ Mum put her head on one side. ‘Don’t you want to come and live with me?’ I stared at her. I stared and stared and stared. I wanted to rewind her so that I could hear her all over again. And again. I couldn’t believe it. Or was she kidding? ‘Really? With you, Mum?’ ‘That’s what I said.’ ‘For how long? A whole week?’ I asked. ‘Never mind a week! How about for ever?’ ‘Wow!’ She still had her fag so I didn’t jump on her. I jumped on Elaine’s swivel chair instead and whirled it round and round.
‘Don’t do that, you’re doing my head in,’said Mum. I stopped, sharpish. ‘It’s time we got together, darling,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve missed my little girl so much. We’re going to make a go of it together, just you and me.’ It was like she’d taken me by the hand and we were climbing a golden staircase right up into the sky. And then I tripped on a step because I suddenly thought of something. ‘But what about Cam?’ ‘What about her?’ said Mum. She took a last drag and then squashed her cigarette fiercely inside the Bunnikins mug. I imagined all their powder-puff tails scorching. ‘Never mind this Cam. She’s not family. Oh, Tracy, we’ll have such a great time together. First we’ll kit you out with some new clothes, smarten you up a little—’ ‘I’ll smarten up all you want, Mum, no worries on that score. Designer clothes?’ ‘Only the best for my girl. None of this shabby chainstore stuff. You don’t want to look the same as all the other kids. You want to look that bit special.’ ‘You bet!’ I whirled round one more time. ‘Genuine logos, not fake market stuff?’ ‘Who do you think I am?’said Mum, hands on hips. ‘You’re my mum,’ I said.
S-o-o-o-o . . . I’m going to have my fairytale happy ending and more than half this notebook is still empty! I’m going to live with my mum. I am. I am. Just as soon as we’ve got it sorted out with Elaine. ‘I’ll sort her!’said Mum. And of course there’s Cam. Cam.
Alexander’s Home I’M MAD AT Cam. I mean, I went through agonies telling her. I felt really bad. I was nearly crying. I thought it would be awful for her. But do you know something? She didn’t seem to care at all! She didn’t gasp and cry and cling to me. She just sat there, biting her nails, though she ticks me off something rotten if I do that. She didn’t say anything. Not a single word. No ‘Don’t leave me, darling Tracy, you mean the whole world to me and I can’t live without you.’ Nothing. So I got a bit mad then and told her that my mum thinks I look a right old scruffbag and she’s going to get me kitted out in a full set of designer clothes. I thought that might get her going. I thought she might say, ‘Oh, Tracy, I feel so bad, I’ve never given you decent clothes, but tell you what, if you promise to stay with me we’ll go into town right away and I’ll wave my credit card like a wand and you can wear anything you want, money no object, just so long as you live with me.’ But not a bit of it. She still said a big fat NOTHING. So I got really really mad because she obviously couldn’t care less so I went on about all this other stuff my mum was going to buy me, like a computer and rollerblades and a new bike and a trip to Disneyland and she didn’t even flinch. Didn’t try to compete. Simply couldn’t be bothered. She just sat there, nibble nibble on her nails, like she was bored with the whole situation and couldn’t wait to be shot of me. So then I was so mega-mad I just wanted to don Doc Martens and jump up and down on her so I went on and on about my mum and how great she is and fantastically beautiful and wonderfully dressed and how we had these
amazing cuddles and it was just like we’d never ever been parted. And she still didn’t say a word! Nibble nibble on the nails till she was nearly down to her own knuckles. ‘Say something!’ She just sat there and sat there and then she eventually took her hand out of her mouth and mumbled, ‘I don’t really know what to say.’ Call herself a writer! ‘I thought you were meant to be good with words!’ ‘Just at the moment they’re sticking in my throat,’ she mumbled, like I’d just squirted Superglue round her tonsils. I went and stood right in front of her. She was all huddled up, almost as if I had been jumping all over her. I had this sharp little pain in my chest. I suddenly felt like I was the mother and she was my little girl. ‘You’re sad, aren’t you, Cam?’ I said softly. She made more mumbly noises and started nail-biting again. I reached out and took hold of her nibbled hand. ‘You’re unhappy that my mum’s come back, aren’t you?’ I said hopefully. Cam didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then she gave me this weird smile, practically stretching from ear to ear. ‘I’m happy for you, Tracy,’ she said. I dropped her hand like it was red hot and ran out of the room. Happy! Smiling all over her face! She obviously couldn’t wait to be rid of me. She doesn’t care about me at all. Well, I don’t care. I don’t need her. I’ve got my mum now. I’ll go and live with Mum and I shan’t mind a bit if I never see Cam ever again. I’m not going to take any notice of her. I’m just going to put my life on hold until I can go and live with my mum. I’m not going to go to school either. I’m in a bit of bother at school at the moment. I started up the Dare Game, quite by chance. Roxanne was calling me the B word again because she knows it really gets to me, so I dared her to say it in front of Mrs Bagley. I thought she’d chicken out. But her eyes glittered and she said, ‘Right!’ She marched right up to Mrs V.B. and said, ‘Tracy Beaker told me to say this weird word, Mrs Bagley,’ and then she said it straight out and added, all Little